The photo with this post is not of the Tour of California. I’m still in Saint Louis, so there is no way I could get a picture of this week’s tour. The photo is actually from the 2002 Sea Otter Classic. The Sea Otter is held every April, at the Laguna Seca raceway in Monterey, California. The guy in the foreground is my brother, Chris. Today’s header shows the coast in near by Pacific Grove.

The big news item of this year’s Tour of California has got to be Lance Armstrong. This tour is his first professional bike race since coming out of retirement. He had been in retirement since 2005, when he won his last and seventh consecutive Tour de France.

Lance has had a few rough spots in this year’s Tour of California. After the first time trial, Lance’s special time trial bike was stolen. It was returned a few days later though. This is fortunate for Lance; he is scheduled to ride the stolen bike today. This time trial bike cost about $10,000.

Lately though, Lance has been bedeviled by the Yellow Devil. The Yellow Devil is a guy dressed up in a yellow and black devil’s costume, but instead of a pitch fork, he has a giant syringe. The Yellow Devil is protesting the use of performance enhancing drugs in professional cycling in general and by Lance in particular. Earlier this week the Yellow Devil was protesting while Lance was riding by him. Lance reached out and pushed the Yellow Devil into a roadside snow bank.

All that being said, Lance is succeeding in his stated goal for this race, which is to help propel fellow teammate and team captain Levi Leipheimer to victory. Today’s time trial victory by Leipheimer further cements the lead he had going into today. Leipheimer, a California resident is something of the home town favorite in this year’s tour. The Tour of California concludes this weekend.